has demonstrated the strength of the international Christian bonds. There are good men in the different countries who have entered into an agreement that after they have fought out as citizens their political differences, they will instantly resume constructive co-operation after the war. The war is revealing the helpfulness of inter

national bonds. He affirms that this war will not be followed by over forty years of international revenge, as in the case of the Franco-Prussian War; neither will it be followed, as in our Civil War, by the division of whole Churches; but by an instant rebuilding of the great international

structure.

I

HAVE always, advocated prevention of disease, instead of cure; hygiene

as against medicine. I think that arbitration, once the fires are alight or even well laid, will stop very few wars. It would not have stopped our Revolution, the Mexican War, or our Civil War, the German French War of 1870, nor the Balkan War. Human nature is but too often not amenable to a bit. If we really want peace, we must go to the bottom of things and remove the causes of war.

There are, in my belief, only two real causes of war, and one of these we can never arbitrate. These two are trade jealousy and aspiration toward racial solidarity. This latter will ever work for war until it be accomplished. It is an impulse as constant and as irresistible as gravity. It was this which caused the wars in the third quarter of the last century, which made a real Italy and a real Germany. It caused the Balkan conflagration, And it is well to recall, not as against arbitration but as against over-optimism, that it was the findings of a Peace Conference, that of Berlin, from which Disraeli claimed to return with peace with honor, that made this war certain. No arbitration will ever touch such elemental questions. The mighty aspiration for a united Germany which underlay the Franco-German War was too deep in its nature to be touched by any court. Thus in my view it is vain to hope for everlasting peace until racial instincts adjust themselves into real national segregations.

Man is a trading animal. He has traded ever since he has been man, and from very small barter, the exchange of a skin, say, for something to eat, this barter has grown to be the greatest of material interests: covering the ocean with steamships, the land with railways, and shuffling humanity to and fro in the search of new ores, new fibres, and new fields of trade. It has caused the development of industrialism until we are mad to make things and to find people who will buy them. This is the interest which dominates the whole world.

In looking over the ways of mankind one will find no altruism in commercial matters. We will sacrifice ourselves individually in many ways, but nations will never sacrifice themselves when it comes to a matter of business. They draw there the line of friendly help. There is no country which does not mulct the products of another in matters of exchange. Great Britain is the only one which is even spoken of as a free-trade country. It will perhaps surprise some to know that the people of the United Kingdom pay more customs duties per head than do we of the United States. Great Britain, however, has been wiser in the adjustment of her duties than we have been and has freed her manufacturing industries from the burdens we laid upon ours.

But England has been a protagonist in commercial war-waging. Her wars with Napoleon were fundamentally trade wars, and very just ones, as Napoleon's avowed

determination was to exclude British trade from continental Europe. Britain so long dominated the world commercially, that any serious rivalry touches her to the quick, whether it is to her actual injury or not. It is enough to recognize that a rival has appeared to stir her enmity. Thus Germany, which in the present generation has risen from a state of almost peasant type, with a landed aristocracy, to a great industrial state-one of the greatest of the world

-became England's bugbear. This German rivalry stirred England to her depths. It is not that she did not increase enormously her trade, but that Germany increased hers in much greater ratio.

The way to the prevention of war growing out of trade rivalry is the Open Door. A recognition of the inherent right of all nations to trade in all regions of the world would remove causes of war growing out of trade jealousies.

M

BY

Y BELIEF and confident hope is that on the termination of the present war, the nations of the earth will be ready for a peace policy that will provide for disarmament for war; and for universal peace, internationally enforced.

This hope is possible to be realized through treaties with the principal nations of the world, embodying mandatory and cardinal rules to be obeyed, requiring all international disputes or grievances to be submitted to a World International Court, or their submission, by agreement, to arbitration; and providing against war between nations through disarmament, and by creating a permanent World Congress or Parliament of Nations to determine and establish international law and rules to govern a World International Court; by creating and providing for such World International Court with jurisdiction to finally adjudicate international differences between nations; by providing for an International Army and Navy to enforce submission of such differences to said Court, or to arbitration as aforesaid, and to enforce and make potential such Court's decrees and the findings of arbitrations on submissions as aforesaid.

Armament of each concurring nation to be limited to what is necessary only to pre

serve its internal peace and order, and to protect it from piratical attack, but not for war with another nation.

Our Republic's safety must in future, as hitherto, rest in the good faith and justice of its conduct; its devotion to peace, rather than to war, and, should war unfortunately come, to the valor of its poeple generally, rather than to a large standing army and a world-competing navy. For a constant readiness to present a reasonably safe battle-front on our continental borders, a standing army of a million of men would be inadequate; and to only possibly safeguard our Ocean, Gulf and Lake coasts (in extent equal to one and one-third the circumference of the earth at the equator) would require a navy double that now possessed by Great Britain; and, with such an army and navy, our outlying possessions would be left unprotected; and this country would soon be hopelessly bankrupt.

Peace policies such as neutralization and enforceable arbitration-not militarism, will guarantee the perpetuity of the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

Washington, in his Farewell Address with prescient wisdom, warned his country

men to

"avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of govern

ment, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to liberty.”

General Grant with a century of his country's history behind him, with great experience in war as a successful commander, and possessing mature judgment, near the close of his life, bears this testimony:

"Though I have been trained a soldier and have participated in many battles, there never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not have been found to prevent the drawing of the sword. I look forward to an epoch when a court recognized by all nations will settle international differences instead of keeping large standing armies as they do in Europe."

The present world-war intensifies the horrors and irreparable baneful consequences of war, dwarfing not only our bloody Civil War into insignificance, but also the Napoleonic and all other great wars of the past. Its character, regardless of the cause or causes, the purpose or purposes, or the nation or nations which brought it on, challenges the civilization of this age. Militarism of the several principal nations seems to be responsible for the present war. Though on a mission of peace, I was present in Europe and witnessed its initiation, about one year ago. It is my confident

hope and desire to live until it ends, and that I may then be able to join in a Peace Parliament of the World that will lead to peace among all nations, through all time.

Our present navy and army would be inadequate to protect even the Panama Canal unless at least one hundred and fifty millions of dollars were first expended in establishing a naval station at each end of it, and for fortifications, as recommended by the Fortification Board; and to make its protection at all possible, a further strong fleet would be indispensable on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to safely convoy ships with provisions and munitions of war to feed and supply the local forces

It could and should have been, and could now be, neutralized by international treaty, as the Suez Canal has successfully been since 1888. Unless neutralized, in times of war in which the United States is engaged, the Panama Canal will be closed to commerce, however well defended. If neutralized, no nation at war with us would use it, and it would otherwise be open to commerce and be a great source of revenue; and it could not be taken from us.

O

NE hundred and thirty-eight years ago the Continental Congress established by law the flag of the United States. We do well to celebrate that momentous birthday. We do well, I say, to celebrate it, providing that behind our words are deeds, and that the cheers, music and eulogies are not lip service; provided that we know, deep in our hearts, what the flag means, in the first place, and, in the second place, what we are willing to do for it if the time comes when it needs us.

The flag is not a material object. It matters not whether it is a flag like that which flew over Fort Stanwich,-made of strips of shirts and bits of blue uniforms

worn by the soldiers of the Revolution who defended that fort against the British; whether it is a beautiful silk flag such as we have seen to-day, or faded bunting handed. down to us from the Civil War. It is always the flag. It is a symbol to which we pay our devotion. What does it mean?

In the first place, it is the American flag. Just that and nothing more. No other adjective is ever prefixed to that word. It stands for the history of the United States and the traditions of our people. It stands. for this country and its people, and no other. It is the flag just as much of the man who was naturalized yesterday as of the man. whose people have been here generations.

It means vast material prosperity. It has gone with us on that western march which has subjugated the entire continent to the uses of man. Under its shelter the Atlantic and Pacific have been joined. It has gone with Peary to the north pole. It is seen in the wilderness of Alaska, and in the tropics of the Philippines.

It means, wherever it goes, the Constitution of the United States. It means freedom of speech and freedom of thought. It means men have suffered and died for that flag. It means more than safety and shelter for all who dwell beneath its folds. Look close upon it and you will see a great procession of men who have given all that life holds dearest that that flag might stand.

You see there Washington and his Continentals who gave us independence. You see there the many who in the war of 1812 gave us our place of respect and honor among the nations, and you see there in that flag the faces of all that great brotherhood who died that the Union and the flag might live, and first among them the face of Abraham Lincoln.

They gave their lives to guard that flag. They sacrificed everything that no star should be removed or diminished, and they handed it to us without a stain. The flag

may call upon us again for protection, and when it does, the response will be the same; but bear this in mind, that if the citizens protect the flag, the flag must protect the citizens. Wherever any American goes legally and observing the law, there the flag goes with him, and there it must ever go. We cannot afford as a nation to allow the humblest citizen among us to suffer in any way wrong or unjustice. We cannot suffer American lives to be taken illegally and wantonly without seeking redress. For if the flag does not protect the citizen, the citizens in time to come will not protect the flag. We must protect the flag and in so doing protect each one of us.

The flag stands for all that we hold dear, freedom, democracy, government of the people, by the people, and for the people. These are the great principles for which the flag stands, and when that democracy and that freedom and that government of the people are in danger, then it is our duty to defend the flag which stands for them all, and in order to defend the flag and keep it soaring as it soars here to-day, undimmed, unsullied, victorious over the years, we must be ready to defend it, and like the men of '61 and '76, pledge to it our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

R

OBERT R. MCCORMICK, the well-known war correspondent, in an article summarizing the achievements of Great Britain in the war, gives credit to the British navy for saving the country, but says of her land operations: "To all soldiers the fact has become plain that as a military factor Great Britain. was negligible. The military in control of the press forbade telling the people the truth that the Germans knew well enough." The core of the trouble Mr. McCormick traces to the volunteer system of recruiting

the British armies. He adds:

Where small armies suffice it is evident that voluntary armies are better than armies trained by universal service, because the more adventurous volunteer and those not up to the physical requirements may be rejected, but where a substantial proportion of the nation is needed for the war the voluntary system must collapse utterly, as it has in England.

In collecting a large volunteer army men must be tempted in every way. They must be allowed to form special regiments of different classes, so that while one regiment may contain 100 men fit to be officers another regiment may contain less than ten.

Men of ages varying from 20 to 40 may be in the same regiment and men from the strongest to the weakest in physique may be put in the same regiment, with a result that a group of such regiments is worth about half as much as an equal number of men grouped according to the Prussian system.

In occupying fortresses and lines of trenches middle-aged men are substantially as good as the youngest. Germany uses her middle-aged men for this kind of work, and the young men for active work.

Under the voluntary system, where old and young are mixed together, half the regiment of young men are immobilized in permanent fortifications, and regiments composed in half of oldish men are sent on long marches, with the result that half the regiment is left on the roadside. It must be plain that the latter form of organization can never defeat the former.

England, in Mr. McCormick's opinion, has organized a voluntary army infinitely better than any great voluntary army that was ever organized before, but it has the weakness inherent in the volunteer system. He thinks the war has demonstrated that a large voluntary army can not compete with universal service troops. Gen. Kitchener's army has shown that the whole military

system of Great Britain must be revolutionized if the English are to meet the Germans on anything like equal terms, and that to send the forces which are in training in England to the continent to fight against the better trained German forces "is to

slaughter so many thousands of men without any hope of victory." It may be said. that in our civil war both the Union and Confederate armies were composed mainly of volunteers, and that they became, in time, equal in fighting ability to any of the European conscript armies. But it must

be remembered that in our war no such huge masses of men were opposed to each other as we see now in the trenches and on the battlefields of Europe, and that it was not until the third year of the war that our armies became really efficient according to the highest military standards of that day. The British volunteer army might be pounded into efficiency if it were meeting opposing armies of similar organization, but it is to be feared that, pitted from the start against such troops as Germany can. bring into the field, they will be exhausted and destroyed before they can reach the necessary point of efficiency.

A democratic form of government undoubtedly labors under a disadvantage in war at least at the beginning-because public sentiment in democratic nations is bitterly opposed to raising armies. by conscription. But a republican government can raise armies in that way, as Switzerland has proven. This war may teach all other republics and democracies the hard lesson that if they are ever compelled to raise huge armies in proportion to their population with a view to successfully defending their territory from invasion, conscription or universal service will have to be substituted for the voluntary system.

The Advocate of Peace, the organ of the American Peace Society, places on record several objections to the plans designed for